Molestation Case

A 21-year-old Lomita woman has won a $241,000 civil suit against a man who she alleged had molested her when she was 10 years old. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded Danielle Adam $141,000 in compensatory damages for pain and suffering and $100,000 in punitive damages. The suit alleged that Fred Thrasher, 48, of Los Angeles, had molested her for two years, beginning in 1979, while living with her mother in the family home.

The judge in one of the most lurid mass child-molestation cases of the 1980s ordered a new trial for one of the defendants and ruled that the youngsters cannot testify because they have been hopelessly tainted by investigators' leading questions. The ruling in Cambridge gutted the case against Cheryl Amirault LeFave, who was convicted along with her mother and brother of molesting children at the Fells Acres day-care center.

Bail was reduced Tuesday in the sexual molestation case against the consulting psychiatrist for Camp O'Neal, the Sierra Nevada youth facility central in the drowning of seven people last month at Convict Lake. Municipal Judge Christopher Strople cut James Harrington White's bail from $500,000 to $200,000 and barred White from practicing medicine pending the outcome of his prosecution.

You have recently published stories regarding Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald Owen and his grant of a new trial in a child molestation case in which the jury had returned a verdict of guilty. Without knowing everything the judge knew about the case--which is usually more than the jury knows--it is impossible to evaluate his decision. However, having had some firsthand experience in these matters, I would like to share a few observations. Several years ago in Orange County, retired Judge Mason Fenton was called upon to grant a motion for a new trial after a jury convicted one defendant of rape--the judge had a feeling about the case that is difficult for anyone without his knowledge of the case and his experience as a judge to understand.

The course of Gloria (GiGi) Goldman's life now rests with the six men and six women sitting in judgment of her. Either she is a child molester who betrayed the trust of a 15-year-old Thousand Oaks neighbor boy who called her "Aunt GiGi" and started a wild and varied sexual relationship with the teen-ager. Or she is the victim of the sexual fantasies and desires of a hurtful and sinister teen-ager given to braggadocio.

A judge on Monday postponed the sentencing of a Pasadena high school coach convicted of molesting a teenage boy, blaming the defense for delaying the matter a third time. Clyde Ezra Turner, track coach at John Muir High School, has been held in the County Jail since his May conviction on two felony counts of child molestation.

A former Palmdale City Council candidate whose trial last year on two counts of child molestation ended in a mistrial pleaded guilty Thursday to two reduced charges and was sentenced to three years probation. Prosecutors offered to let Richard Burriss plead guilty to misdemeanor battery charges after San Fernando Superior Court Judge John H.

A Santa Ana elementary school teacher pleaded not guilty Thursday to molesting three students. Jerome Thompson Wilhoit, 36, also was ordered to appear in court again Tuesday for a pretrial hearing and on May 21 for his preliminary trial. Municipal Judge Charles Margines set his bail at $100,000. Ken Schreiber, Wilhoit's attorney, said he would ask for a reduction in bail at the hearing if Wilhoit remains at Orange County Jail. "Obviously, he maintains his innocence," Schreiber said.

A 25-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of sexually molesting two young boys while he baby-sat them in their Silver Strand neighborhood, authorities said Thursday. Kinji Richmond of Oxnard, who was arrested Wednesday evening, is suspected of molesting the children of eight or more other families during July and August, investigators for the Ventura County Sheriff's Department said.